Commercial, industrial, domestic and apartment buildings require ventilation. It is common for natural leakage around doors, wall-ceiling joints, etc. found in standard building construction to allow sufficient air to enter the building. A pressure drop from the exterior to the interior of the building can arise from many factors, such as high winds, exhaust fans and combustion air for fuel-burning furnaces. This tends to draw outside air into the building through cracks or openings.
The conventional approach to providing ventilation by simply allowing air flow through leaks around doors and joints suffers from the disadvantages that the amount and the temperature of ventilation air is not controlled. This lack of control of ventilation air is typically made up for by providing additional heat during the heating season or by providing additional cooling by way of air conditioning and fans during the warm season or in hot climates.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,899,728 and 4,934,338 issued Feb. 13, 1990 and Jun. 19, 1990, respectively, disclose the use of a solar panel to heat fresh make-up (ventilation) air prior to introduction into a building. These systems are efficient for heating large volumes of air per surface area of solar panel. The systems described in these patents, however, address only heating of ventilation air and fail to address cooling which is desirable during the warm season or in hot climates.